Facepunch “knocked out” by Rust sales figures

Facepunch Studios has shared its delight at the Steam sales figures of their building survival title Rust.

In a blog update this evening Garry Newman he released an interesting sales comparison graph between Rust and his previous game Garry’s Mod.

As you can see there’s a significant difference and it’s no wonder he’s pleased with the way the game is selling on Steam.

Newman posted his thoughts on the numbers:

“So I think we have all been very very surprised by Rust’s popularity. In its first two weeks Garry’s Mod sold just over 34,000. That was amazing for me. It changed my life overnight. In Rust’s first two weeks it has sold just over 150,000 copies. Which on its own is amazing. It’s even more amazing for us, because our royalty rate is 30% higher and it costs twice as much as Garry’s Mod.”

He does point out that Garry’s Mod was one of the first games on Steam back in 2006 which is why the numbers would be lower.

Gaming has changed in the past few years with the realisation that indie games can be better than some AAA games released by the big publishers. There’s more confidence in indie releases and there’s a real interest in creative games thanks to Minecraft. Survival games are also proving pretty popular.

Facepunch may have created a game that ticks a lot of boxes for gamers at the moment and timing can play such an important part in a game’s success these days.